


it's like being in love with a buzzsaw

by Radiolaria



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/F, Five Stages of Grief, Grief/Mourning, Post-Season/Series 01, Post-War, Unrequited Love, Welcome to Starfleet's administrative limbo, otherwise known as hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:00:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24609571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/pseuds/Radiolaria
Summary: Five times Michael grieves Philippa after the war.
Relationships: Michael Burnham & Amanda Grayson, Michael Burnham & Keyla Detmer, Michael Burnham & Sylvia Tilly, Michael Burnham/Philippa Georgiou
Comments: 13
Kudos: 23





	it's like being in love with a buzzsaw

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Howard Hawks' 1939 classic “Only Angels Have Wings”
> 
> I stumbled on this one-shot written after S1's finale and I like it enough to polish it now, almost two years after the fact. 
> 
> Although it is tagged as Milippa, the relationship is not really explicit: the fic explores Michael processing events from S1, as well as her grief over Philippa's death, sticking rather close to canon. The exact nature of Michael's feelings for Philippa is not discussed until the end.

i.

The first time, Michael is landing in San Francisco after their discharge from High Command.

The _Discovery_ is to be grounded on Earth for investigation, a decision that Michael cannot begrudge given the technology on-board and the crew’s tendency to disobey orders.

It is raining for the duration of their descent into the lower strata of the atmosphere, clouds tall and rumbling around them. The drops crash against the viewscreen and run across their field of vision as no piece of space could touch them when they are up there.

White, thistly clouds shroud the docks, a vast complex of cranes and platforms that Michael only saw once that time the _Shenzhou_ ran into integrity protocols breach, four years back. An irrational fear seized Michael then, that the ship was too old and about to be decommissioned permanently. Her former Captain quelled her fears without delay: Michael would fly again, even without the _Shenzhou._

How difficult to remember how evident her words were back then when the crew of another ship, not even Michael’s, is staring anxiously at the landing lights blinking in the mist.

Loud and uneasy, the docking procedures slog away, metal groaning and wheezing so hideously that Michael suspects the use of quantum wedges to keep them at the quay. Ignorant of the details pertaining to the ship’s journey, the Federation fears an escape, understandably.

To untangle phantasm from dread, truth from fiction will take several months, Starfleet high military court’s efficiency notwithstanding, and the crew is short of one captain to vow for them. The court can call to the stand a widowed Science Officer, an anxious Commander in mourning, an enthusiastic but traumatized Ensign and…

Her. Michael Burnham. Not even Starfleet anymore.

Personal effects are transported to assigned secured quarters in the vicinity, though not by their own means: time is allotted to scan and search them for unknown technology and viruses brought back from the other universe.

There is no telling just how much Admiral Cornwell shared with the Federation about Lorca and the Terran Empire. For now, her precautions before the official debriefing sessions allow the crew certain freedom, albeit quarantined and scrutinized. Michael has no reason to believe the ship brought back with them anything more than they did — a poison in itself, Michael’s burden and guilt — but Starfleet fears them, _her_.

There is no trust between them, only vague, terrified gratitude for ending the war at a minimal cost.

This is how they come to Earth, without luggage, probed and cleaned like newly introduced species.

The pleasantries and nudges one could expect in such a situation do not come, as only Lorca’s ghost and the perspective of a lengthy trial follow them. Many of them appear to be happy to be back on solid Terran ground, even Saru, who never fails to express his “disapproval” of Earth and its ways.

“It’s going to clear.” Joann’s eyes are on the clouds. “I know it.”

“Preparing your reconversion already,” Keyla wisecracks. “You’d make a cute weather girl.”

No dirty look from Joann, but a shaky sigh, and Keyla gently bumps into her shoulder.

The crew is isolated in their relief, conscious this reprieve is a curfew, this stopover detention. Even Tilly hovers more quietly than usual around her and the superior officers have all scattered already, without giving orders.

The comfort brought by their shared confinement, eerily similar to her own a little over a year ago, tastes bitter on Michael’s lips.

Rhys, Tracy, Milton, Airiam…

She has grown attached to the faces she doesn’t quite know yet, and surely, she will find pleasure in getting to know them under more agreeable circumstances.

Outside the transportation hub where the crew idly wanders, uneasy with the knowledge none of them are free to stray far, Michael looks up to the sky cleared by the storm and takes a deep breath.

They are home.

But Earth hasn’t been Michael’s home in a very long time.

It was Philippa’s.

Her anchor, if anything could anchor her, was Earth.

Michael has no desire to be here.

Like children, the crew can roam a certain perimeter unsupervised, a misshaped triangle extending between the hub station, the courthouse, and their quarters. It is sizeable enough for them not to feel trapped, to share a meal in a variety of restaurants, even go shopping and visit a museum, yet it does not abate the months they will spend arguing for their freedom.

Michael is in no rush to get to her new quarters.

After the third corner, a sense of peace settles in her bones. Her life has changed since the last time she was here. The wind turns, bringing traces of iodine, of a song with a familiar melodic structure, of buried memories. Cold blows through her fingers spread futilely. When her fist closes her hand finds nothing but air.

She missed this, the unpredictability of the weather.

On Pulau Langkawi, they swam in the sea during a storm. The water was warm as a bath, the atmosphere heavy; Philippa’s hair fanned out in the water like ink.

What would it take to make Earth Michael’s home at last?

To lose her home of seven years and her friend.

ii.

The second time, Amanda can finally talk to her in person after the first batch of hearings.

Sarek traveled to Earth in preparation for the commission, but it took him a week to be granted authorization to meet Michael. Starfleet, despite their gratefulness for the resolution of the war, was displeased by the sequence of events that led a truly impressive quantity of explosives trapped on Qo'noS, and Sarek didn’t shun from disclosing the extent of the role he played.

Michael has no doubt that her father managed to be convincing in its objectivity regarding her case and disheartening in its brevity: Amanda can see her without a third party.

They have not seen each other in person in almost a year, the last time being—

Philippa’s funeral.

Amanda brought the recording to Michael then.

Due to the circumstances, the warden authorized her to be with the prisoner for a brief exchange, in person, not through a holo-call. A grave mistake on the prison’s part given her stepmother’s determination and the furious intent to hold her in her arms. Thankfully, no guard would dare touching an ambassador’s wife and Michael’s continuous display of humility assured them an escape was inconceivable.

It still appears so, more than a year after, when Michael welcomes her stepmother in the simple quarters she shares with Tilly on Earth. Amanda hugs her and Michael does not deny her.

A hollow sound cracks on Michael’s chest.

She thinks for a brief instant the embrace is too tight and a piece of Amanda’s jewelry was damaged between them.

It is her own voice and the first sob out of many.

Exhaustion explains her display of pain, and relief, hope, the illogical surge of energy overcoming her when her mother holds her tight.

A lot of it is being transported back to the prison parlor and watching on the screen, drained of blood, the procession of people who loved Philippa.

Michael was not there.

Amanda simply took her hand back in the cell, squeezing it gently, while the speeches echoed on the grey walls.

“Do you have any plan for after the commission?”

“I would prefer to leave as soon as possible.”

Amanda lets out a small sympathetic _oh_ and rotates her cup of tea five degrees, anti-clockwise.

“No vacation? No people you want to visit?” A beat. “I heard Captain Georgiou’s brother has expressed the desire to see you.”

_Tilly and her wandering ears._

Michael has not answered his kind message yet. There is so much she cannot discuss without breaking his heart.

“No. I don’t think seeing him would be appropriate.”

Her mother’s absent nod is etched into her mind, the idiosyncrasies of her dignified empathy that she tried to emulate for so long as a teenager.

“I understand. I am sorry you lost her, Michael.”

She hesitates, about to say another name that Michael cannot find it in herself to hear now. But Amanda is not Sarek; she understands better what it _costs_ Michael to love.

“Out of all the situations I feared I had to protect you from, this was the one I envisioned the least.”

Prison? War? Betrayal? Coerced work for an obsessive would-be tyrant?

“You thought Starfleet would be unsuitable for me.”

“It seemed like a sensible choice, but still, _Human_ ,” Amanda rectifies calmly. “And you abided so much by Vulcan thinking when you left us. I must admit that I was more afraid than I was excited when Sarek proposed Starfleet. No matter how kind he painted them to be.”

Interesting that the manner in which the Vulcan Science Expedition denied Michael would inspire Sarek to characterize Starfleet as _"kind_."

The reflection does not prevent Michael’s heart from twinging at the thought of Philippa surviving, had they never been colleagues.

“Starfleet was not kind to me in the end.”

“I know.” Amanda looks pointedly at her. “We should have fought harder for you. I am sorry.”

What would it have accomplished?

Her crimes were not a fable: the war happened, the mutiny happened, and Philippa…

Starfleet had no reason to be kind, as did Philippa.

_“To think I knew you so little.”_

_You almost did._

She harmed her the most in the end.

Michael recalls Philippa’s words, the harsh syllables wrapped around “her Vulcan shell.” Philippa was clear the principles of Starfleet would always come first on her ship regardless of the rank; tolerance, a will to understand, kindness above all.

But at this moment she forgot them to lash out at Michael, and aside from the surprise of finding out Michael could prompt such reactions from Philippa, it hurt Michael more than she could tell.

_“The ego I had.”_

Philippa had taken back her trust in her and with it her acceptance of Michael’s uniqueness. Philippa had let her be herself, Human and Vulcan, never questioning Michael’s push for thriving in this state in-between.

It cut her, viciously.

The delicate balance was broken, and Michael saw that Philippa perhaps never _let_ her be anything.

Philippa didn’t know her if she believed Michael had betrayed anything of her principles, of their friendship, to save them.

Why couldn’t _Philippa_ understand?

Michael will never know.

She will only know, without an ounce of uncertainty, that Philippa was hurt that day, enough to do something Michael never thought she would do: hurt her back.

And that it may be the most potent, sincere declaration of powerlessness before her that Philippa could ever give.

iii.

The third time, she lingers alone, waiting between sessions in the courthouse.

Half a dozen lower decks engineers are asked to the stand this morning and Michael’s name is in the middle of theirs, inexplicably. Starfleet’s insistence on treating her like a consultant rather than a member of the fleet consistently perplexes her; either she is a prisoner enlisted for the duration of the war or she is a Starfleet officer.

None of the engineers served with her on the _Shenzhou_ and half of them didn’t even know she was Michael Burnham, the mutineer. Estebe, Tal, Stück — colleagues she has never met and who gauchely engaged in small talks with her to lighten the atmosphere. They have not known about Ripper, about Ash, about Georgiou: the incursion into the other universe was just another day at the office, a masquerade, unlikely to prevent them from maintaining the nuclear core.

“Michael, right? Do you think they’ll call back that psychologist from this morning?”

“If they didn’t like what we had to say about Lorca’s management, why bother asking?”

“I think the admiral at the far left, the Bolian, fell asleep.”

When they leave to find coffee together, Michael stays behind, perplexed.

A door opens to her right, catching briefly her attention.

Someone steps out, hurried, efficient, looking down at a PADD, and the door closes on an empty desk, two chairs, one in front, one behind, dark against the white wall.

She does not identify the memory, the feeling, the impression, summoned at this instant. The lack of her old friend barges on her, like an unfamiliar name, shouted in a seemingly empty alleyway.

_Philippa._

The silence of her thoughts has been cast in her name.

Perhaps it is the resounding absence, how heavy and massive. A piece of her flesh separated from her body, without breaking the skin and left floating inside her, disconnected and petrified, a dead lung, a calcified liver.

Michael cannot look anymore.

She can breathe and stand, even walk, but the blood in her veins feels like it had changed density, her skin turned to varnish, her limbs grown spider silk. The empirical symptoms suggest a mild drop in blood pressure, but Michael is certain this has more to do with utter despair coming back to her, the emptiness she felt just after she left prison for _Discovery_.

Doctor Culber took her aside and asked about booking sessions with one of the onboard trained psychiatrists. But Michael knew them; one was on the _Shenzhou_ and the other lost his entire crew during the battle of the Binary Stars. She could not talk to them.

She could not talk to anyone. She did not want pity, and there was no one to offer it.

Now, Michael has almost been reinstated in her position. She never thought she would spend her whole career on the _Shenzhou_ , primarily because of her age, and down the line, she wanted to try and work in different environments. Starfleet was an experience, even if she had spent more time with them than she did with the Vulcan Academy, but it still was a subject of discovery and novelty in itself, and now…

Now, she is on track with what she had expected her life in Starfleet to be, in space, and Philippa is still gone.

_“Give them a year or two, and you will get a ship, Burnham,” Admiral Cornwell confided in her at the end of a crucial hearing._

Hoping for a public excuse is delusional, worse, dangerous for the Federation, after the way they have made an example out of her case for all of the quadrants to see, but she will get her badge back and a sympathetic shoulder grab from an admiral, saying—

_Commander Michael Burnham of the USS Discovery._

They say it as if the war was no more than a parenthesis.

When Philippa doesn’t say it, her title is not the same, her _name_.

It’s gauche, scattered.

Philippa held together so much of what Michael had thought she had dealt with: her parents’ death, her guilt, the attack, her isolation, all met with Philippa’s ineffable fortitude and warmth. It was what kept her going despite her past. 

It is what kept her trapped.

A life of loss against the choice of hope, as if Michael had a choice, as if she had wanted anything but the reassurance that she did not need to go through this to choose hope.

Hope can only do so much for her future, it cannot heal her past. Was it how Philippa carried her dead around?

Michael has a choice to make between carrying on her flame in the form of her life philosophy and healing _from_ her. She cannot do both.

Is she doomed to be followed around by ghosts? Philippa, Ash, and a little boy with jet black hair?

She isn’t alone by the end of her collapse. A woman has stopped beside her and a steady hand on her back is guiding her through her numbness.

Michael is in the middle of the hallway, jaws clenched and body tensed, and officers are gawking at her, but that woman —Bajoran, small, dark-skinned, a little younger than her— is holding onto to her and nudging her to another room.

If she knows who Michael is and what Michael has done, it is impossible to tell, but she stays with Michael until being hurts a little less.

iv.

The fourth time, she is with a few of her crewmembers.

They have been audited for the eighth time since _Discovery's_ grounding three months ago. Even Admiral Cornwell could not justify everything that happened with Lorca, and L’Rell, and Ash, and —

There is a first time for everything, and this is the first time thinking about Philippa’s wraith hiding in a corner of the quadrant annoys her instead of hurting her.

Michael must accept the fraud to keep the Universe at peace.

Commissions after commissions, interviews, and reports, for a time it seemed like they would never fly on the _Discovery_ again, let alone together. They go out for a drink right after the medal ceremony, and then, too afraid never to see each other, they stray. They find other ways to enjoy life free, even if it is only this: another way to enjoy life when they only desire one path.

They want to fly again.

They don’t stay in the bar. Earth makes Saru nervous and nerves make Saru hungry. Owosekun has heard of a good pizzeria by the docks and Rhys is elated to type in their destination on the teletransporter after months of being confined. They walk on the pier with their boxes and drinks and settle on the floor and disused docking anchors.

The night is fresh, animated.

They raise their biodegradable cans and without thinking, toast to lost companions, instead of their freedom, their joy, their reclaimed right of roaming the stars. 

To derelict friends. Culber, Nambue, Landry, Shockley, Danby.

And Georgiou, but Michael cannot say her name. She suspects that Keyla and Joann guessed she is well and truly dead and shared their conclusion with the rest of the crew.

They are alive, remembering them, and it brings a smile to Michael’s face, treacherous.

A group of officers passes them by. One of them, perhaps recognizing a face in the half-darkness, cries out in their direction:

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

The smiles disappear.

The air hangs heavy with words unsaid. It is easy to say after the fact that they fought together, lived through this together.

They did not. They went through a similar experience, desperately alone, isolated in their grief. Same time, same place, different worlds. Waging a war while mourning meant unraveling their neuroses, their fears, and regrets.

Their dead.

Like a rope supposed to keep them from falling into the pit.

And when they look back, up, they can see nothing but this rope they are supposed to follow back into the light, and it appears unsuited to hands, or needs, or anything they could have used to grasp onto it and hoist themselves up.

The war is not over for them.

They can barely look at each other now.

When she was a child Michael recalled playing with her cousin and cutting a silhouette in a strategically folded piece of synthetic paper. Once opened, the paper would reveal a line of identical characters holding hands.

Michael’s pain, the crew’s, looks like a papercraft of inanimate dancers.

“I read that one time Captain Georgiou flew from—“

“Sylvia, _please_.”

“You’d think you’d be better at it,” Owosekun croaks, stunned. ”Getting on without her. I mean, that’s one of the lessons a parent can teach you, right?”

Keyla heaves a sigh, “She wasn’t our parent, though. She was our Captain.”

Sat on top of a wall, she catches Michael’s eyes. The resentment painted across her features has nothing in common with the one that welcomed Michael on her first day aboard the _Discovery_ : Both Saru and Michael lied to them about the Emperor and let the Admiral disguise a tyrant as their beloved captain, threatening the inhabitants of Qo’noS and leading to the second mutiny in Starfleet’s history.

If Michael had been a better friend, in this case, she would have been a better officer.

Keyla’s face softens, wan. Michael wonders if resentment is as exhausting as it seems.

Silently, Stamets edges closer to Michael, the alcohol making his eyes swim.

Ever since he came out of his spore-induced trance, he has been lingering around her when they are alone.

“Now is the appropriate time to apologize for my behavior when you first came on-board.”

Michael cannot help lifting her eyebrows. He shakes his head to prevent her remark.

“You think we have moved well past that, but I never regretted acting the way I did or considered talking to you about it, before…”

He trails off, loses focus.

“Before his death. I understand a lot of what you did now that I experience that kind of… wall, really. Between me and the rest of the world.”

Michael does not comment on his decision to equate his loss, his _husband_ , to hers, only a captain, and Stamets does not expand on it either. Regret has a language of its own, and half of it is unmentionable.

Later, they all dance to the tune of Stamets’ voice, drunk in the dark. He’s looking at the stars and everyone can tell he is not singing for them.

By western Human standards, it is not a sad song, and Stamets is a gifted performer.

Tilly and Airiam are debating more than they are dancing, and Saru is gently swaying his body nearby. Rhys has fallen asleep on a bench, his head resting in Tracy’s lap. Joann and she are pointing at lights across the water, the ships passing by, the signals.

Keyla waltzes with her. Her smell has not changed a note from when they were serving on the _Shenzhou,_ even if Michael can detect traces of Joann’s conditioner.

Michael feels this is the closest to celebrating Philippa she will ever be.

Images form in her mind, of languid away missions in extravagant and luminous ballrooms, of Philippa cheeks warm with laughter and Rigelian alcohol, of hushed, Human chats they had in the small hours.

She is relieved she never went to the funeral.

There was no body in the casket, but they are dancing under the stars here, where Philippa should be, where she remains until the universe disappears.

Michael feels just strong enough to press her cheek into Keyla’s hair and allow herself to miss Philippa.

v.

The fifth time, Tilly just asks her about Philippa, without warnings.

They did not even consult each other about the possibility to have separate quarters on Earth, although the configuration of their accommodation makes them flatmates more than roommates. The added space is a welcome change, but Michael is grateful when her thoughts come to a halt, interrupted by Tilly’s frazzled humming in the kitchen.

“You have mourned her, haven’t you? The real one, I mean. Now that everything is over.”

The young woman is in the habit of asking the wrong questions at the worst of times, namely at the end of a shift where a fungus exploded on the bridge and covered them in spores, but here they have no spores to tend to, only their personal effects to pack before they report to the _Discovery_ tomorrow. Michael’s answer comes out immediately.

She knows the steps to grief; this is one of them.

“Witches were women who often lived in the margin of society or displayed skills that were considered unnatural to the people of their times.”

The facts ease her way out of dignity, propriety, guilt, everything Michael must contest to experience release.

“Following denunciations by members of the community, they were trialed and burnt for the abominations they committed against the God of Christian old faith. Many of them were widows or unmarried women.”

The expression on Tilly’s face would be amusing under other circumstances. She probably thinks Michael has lost her mind, but she reached out to Michael out of concern and needs to see it through, whether the answer makes sense or not.

“I feel like a witch,” Michael announces evenly, hand on the neat stack of clothes. “With a secret that could have made the world different.”

It did, for a while. The promise of something Michael could never act upon: Michael knew the rules well and Philippa enforced propriety better. But the feelings did spur Michael in a direction she did not anticipate, transforming the resentment of her presence in Starfleet into fondness, hope.

“I knew this: I loved Philippa. And I could not save her. Everything that happened…”

She pauses to take in Tilly’s response, but her friend seems unsurprised. She did learn to read Michael far better than Michael can.

“I know this has nothing to do with why I was sentenced, but it feels like it,” Michael continues.

Philippa wasn’t hers, was she? She was a mentor and a mother of substitution for dozens of officers over her twenty-six-year career in Starfleet. Michael was her latest project.

The telescope never should have landed in Michael’s hands, not because she didn’t deserve it but because—

Philippa broke her trust that day, but Michael still misses her body, dead, on her body, her fingers opened between her fingers, her lips hung to her lips.

Why does she have that still? In her memories. In her dreams.

“Right now, she’s always there and she’s always dead.” Michael sighs, pushes the book with her fingers until it’s parallel to the trunk’s edge. “It’s exhausting, and I cherish it.”

The realization hits her, surely, steadily, like a wave against the shore.

Philippa is like a shard into her skin. She loves her dead as she loved her alive.

 _This_ is her life sentence.

“In a few years, that pain will be dulled, and the weight will be a memory. This is how grieving works.” She nods to herself. She’s done it so many times now. “I have her for now, but it’s not permanent. I’ll keep the pain.”

Her shard in her skin, her death that refuses to be one, and that burns Michael in the process of defining itself.

Outside of herself, everywhere, a ghost, distorted and snarling, who still loves Michael enough not to destroy her.

Michael loses definition as her death comes into focus. She gains entropy, sensations to gauge her pain, but she sees inwardly with a clarity none of Surak’s teachings could have helped her achieve.

Who knew such a Human, illogical reaction would bring her so far in knowing herself?

Tilly is nothing but a white, confused mask in a corner of the room, looking at her with large eyes like she is a priest performing a sacrifice in the middle of the stage.

She feels like it.

“I am _okay,_ Sylvia.” She pads closer to Tilly and hesitates. She takes her hand in hers. “And I am in pain. All of it is her, so I will keep it for as long as I have it. If you don’t mind.”

There is genuine concern in the tension of her eyebrows, but the Ensign reins it in for now.

 _Good_.

Michael needs Tilly to pretend this sits with her because Michael needs this delayed response. Tilly can intervene later.

Michael _wants_ her to.

“I get it. It’s like having to sleep through a tough cold after taking your meds.”

A small huff draws past Michael’s lips.

 _Tough cold_.

Not a year has passed since Philippa’s death, since the Battle at the Binary Stars. Michael has been busy maintaining herself afloat, _not grieving_.

Now is the time to start, to accept.

+

There is no step to grief. Only first times that—second times that —third times that— fourth times that —fifth times that— sixth times that—

  
  
  



End file.
